Boo Humbug: Halloween-haters have their reasons
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Carlee Smith is hardly in the no-fun category.
She hosts a monthly girls’ night out at a bar in Portland, Ore., and co-runs a plus-size vintage boutique called Fat Fancy. But there’s one thing that brings out the hate in her.
Smith, 33, is among a contrarian contingent that takes a boo humbug approach to Halloween.
“As a kid I remember always sort of dreading finding a costume,” she says. “I’m not knocking it for other people, but I’m just not into the spectacle and pressure of it. I don’t like tacky costumes. I like when people dress up for no reason.”
Halloween-haters aren’t as easy to categorize as that odd old lady on the block who always pretends she’s not home Oct. 31, or people who protest the day for religious reasons. The new Halloween-hater is young, loud and proud.
Online T-shirt retailer Zazzle.com has a whole line of anti-Halloween offerings that speak for the movement. Slogans include the saucy “I don’t do costumes. Now step aside, you’re standing on my invisible dog,” and the simple and effective “I hate Halloween,” among more than 340 options.
Some Halloween-haters say they’ve felt that way since childhood.
“I distinctly remember putting on one of my dance recital costumes, grabbing my pumpkin bucket, walking up to the door and bursting into tears,” says Alejandra Owens, 27, of Washington, D.C. She has hated Halloween since she was 5.
“I felt like the moment I walked out the door everyone would be pointing at me and laughing – and not in a good way.”
Does she consider herself a curmudgeon?
“Maybe in college a little, but now all my good friends know how I feel about Halloween so it’s more like a running joke,” she says. “One thing I DO like about Halloween: Now that I live in D.C., people are incredibly creative and smart about their costumes. It’s not just gorilla suits and sexy nurses. People in this town really get into their politically themed costumes.”
If Halloween hating is born of childhood bad experiences, does that make it more of a phobia than a matter of taste?
The scientific name for extreme fear of Halloween is “samhainophobia,” named for the ancient Pagan festival of the dead Samhain. Jerilyn Ross, president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, says actual phobias take things way beyond just a dislike or anxiety.
“To have a Halloween phobia, you avoid it at all cost,” she says. The fear in a phobia, she says, is excessive and irrational and the person knows it.
Ross says she hasn’t come across an actual Halloween phobic in her career, but she’s counseled people who have phobias about things connected to Halloween, such as masks and dolls.
It’s important, she says, for parents who have anxiety about Halloween to avoid projecting their fears on their children.
“It would be wrong for a parent who is cynical about Halloween to make the child feel bad about it,” Ross says.
Dori Fern is a reformed Halloween-hater who took back the holiday for the sake of her children. Fern grew up in New York City in the 1970s when, she says, there was a heightened fear of crimes against children.
“Mom was always anxious,” says Fern.
Every year, Fern would put on whatever dance recital costume she had and was only allowed to visit a few homes that were closely monitored. The whole event felt oppressive and deflating to Fern, so she checked out of it.
“I could not love Halloween until I had my own children so they could enjoy the spirit of the day,” she says. “I want them to feel all the possibilities that were so missing from my childhood.”
But for resolute Halloween-haters Smith and Owens, there’s only one haunted house they’ll be visiting on Oct. 31 – their own. Both say they stay home.
“I will go out of my way to run all my errands, grab a bottle of wine and order dinner in so I can avoid going out for anything on a Halloween night,” Owens says.
